


Katabasis

by heavvymetalqueen



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Fighting As Foreplay, Gen, M/M, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Theseus does something approaching introspection, some cameos from other characters in the game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-09
Updated: 2020-11-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:40:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27459610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heavvymetalqueen/pseuds/heavvymetalqueen
Summary: “Hail, monster!” he shouts, puffing out his chest as far as it can go, letting his spirt form glow bright and luminous. “I, king Theseus of Athens, have come to challenge you once more!”
Relationships: Asterius | The Minotaur/Theseus (Hades Video Game)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 203
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations, Ixnael’s SFW corner





	Katabasis

**Author's Note:**

> In the mythos, Theseus and Pirithous ventured into Tartarus to kidnap Persephone, but were trapped in a living pillar until Herakles came along, several months later. Only Theseus was freed as the whole underworld shook when they tried to rescue Pirithous. 
> 
> Just after returning to the upside world, Theseus, ousted by a new king, was shoved off a cliff by a political enemy and his remains wouldn't be found for many years.
> 
> I wondered what a hero of action like him would do, trapped in the darkness for months on end.

As the jagged rocks shiny with sea spray and blood rush towards him, Theseus smiles.

He knows the darkness. He is not afraid of the darkness. It’s the stillness he abhors, the maddening silence.

And that’s not that’s awaiting him. No longer.

***

Elysium is nothing like Tartarus, a ghostly light shimmering through the glade making it more similar to the sun through the olive gardens of Athena’s temple than the sickly darkness he was imprisoned in only a few weeks before. It is glorious, and shades of great valor spar and battle for eternal honor. In no time Theseus is their champion, shades clamoring his name in the stadium.

But it turns out, that’s also not quite what he wanted. He thinks sometimes of dunking his head in the Lethe and forget, blissful, but he never does.

Perhaps, he thinks, he wants to right the wrong that was done of his brother in arms.

But even as he slips through the gates leading to the glowing caverns of Asphodel, Theseus knows he’s not going all the way into hell for Pirithous.

It’s been so long he’s had a proper fight, so long he can barely remember it. The heroes of Elysium cannot scratch the itch that has been buried within his heart since he was still barely a prince.

***

The panic of being trapped had lasted a while. He tried everything as the spires attached to his muscles and tendons got only tighter, stiffer around him, locking him in place on the seat he had taken to catch his breath. At his side, Pirithous struggled similarly, and eventually he fell silent. Theseus didn’t know if he was alive or not. He tried screaming but the tendrils had crawled into his mouth and nose, tightened around his throat.

After making himself unconscious struggling, and coming to still trapped, he gave up. All he could do was wait.

How _shameful_. A hero, a champion like him, a _king_ , trapped in a living stone pillar in the lowest level of Hades, waiting for a kind soul to free him.

Theseus’ eyes had adjusted to the darkness within a few hours, and in time his ears had grown accustomed to the minute whispers of the shades and the splashes of twisted, blind depths fish in the putrid waters.

But when you live for adventure, you never get used to stillness. His muscles melted off his bones and even drawing breath while ensnared in the cursed seat’s embrace became more and more laborious. All he could move, heavy as the world above itself, were his eyes, and as he started to see more and more into the darkness he started watching. Listening.

Some days nothing moved. No breeze down here in Tartarus, no waves. But sometimes shades fluttered past, incorporeal, free, and Theseus hated them. He was ready to drink the Lethe if only to be free of this unjust sentence. But even as his throat burned and ached with thirst, the waters of freedom lay just far enough for him to reach.

Sometimes more than a shade passed by, and Theseus tried calling, but his voice could never make it past his frozen mouth. It was usually Charon, anyway.

One time, he saw a flutter of pale peplums, the scent of oranges and golden wheat reaching his nostrils and filling him with nostalgia and yearning, and then she was gone.

The queen they’d come to steal had stolen herself, he supposed.

Perhaps it was for the best.

Stealing people’s wives was a bit weird, when you thought about it, wasn’t it? He’d already had three of them and none ever satisfied him, nobody lasted long at his side. He burned too bright, had told him Hippolyta before leaving. He wondered if Phaedra and Hippolyta were here, if Hippolytus was here. If Ariadne. If any of them remembered, bore grudges for him.

He wondered if the minotaur was here.

It was a silly thought at first, borne of seeing a group of shades pass by, one shade larger and more imposing than its companions, but once it had wormed its way into his imprisoned brain, Theseus could not stop thinking about it.

He was a monster, for sure, but also the child of a queen and a divine creature, and an incredibly skilled fighter besides. Perhaps not in Elysium residing with the heroes and demigods, but perhaps here, in a darkness not unlike the one he’d grown up in. He remembered him using the darkness to his advantage, clever and quick on top of the strongest warrior Theseus had fought yet.

And would ever fight.

Maybe he just wanted a rematch. Maybe he just wanted to make this fair, not hero against beast but a pure battle between valiant warriors.

He had no doubt somebody as formidable as the young bull man still retained his wits even in the underworld. Perhaps when he died for real, he was going to look for him among the shades.

Theseus wasn’t expecting to be back quite so fast, to be fair.

***

Theseus looks everywhere in Asphodel. It just seems like the kind of place he’d be, but the dancers turn him away and the gorgons are even less forthcoming.

He rides the barge back and forth on the molten, glowing canal, and fights many a shade for information, but none has seen a minotaur. They’d remember it, they say.

Theseus supposes they’re right. Only one of those, as far as he knows.

Tired of the heat and the constant glow that makes his eyes hurt, Theseus takes the long, winding stairs down to Tartarus.

It’s almost nostalgic to be here now, and free. Now that he can see more of it, it may be repulsive and crumbling but the shades don’t appear unhappy. They do their menial jobs, and seem content with their little place in the machine of the underworld.

Theseus almost envies them. He has never been able to settle for anything.

The shades are a lot more willing to answer his questions, or share a few seeds of pomegranate in star-struck hospitality, but still, nobody has seen a massive man with the head of a bull.

As he walks downwards, Theseus feels as though he can hear a call, distant and alien. The stone pillars all seem to glare at him reproachfully.

“I am sorry, brother,” he says quietly. He leaves as quickly as he can, and does not take a seat for a long time.

Sisyphus is much different than the legends said. He is large and kind and soft spoken, and even though he can’t help, he suggests venturing past the edge of Tartarus to the barren shores of Erebus. Sometimes, he says, shades cannot afford Charon’s ferrying, and are left lingering, watching.

Theseus can’t believe it, but goes anyway, a stomach he doesn’t have anymore flipping inside out from stepping through the infernal gate. He knows he didn’t offer the minotaur the proper respects in the hurry to leave the labyrinth, but certainly the Minoans did? He was a prince after all! Perhaps Charon just does not consider him human enough, and has left him languishing with the shades of animals and monsters.

Could it be...?

The bloody shores of Erebus are teeming with pale shades of heretics, and sacred beasts, and murderers that look at Theseus with envy and spite. And yet it is not hard to find him, the only shade with massive, curved horns sitting cross legged by the shore, beady eyes lost towards the burning horizon.

Theseus realizes he doesn’t even know his name. He never asked Ariadne. Did they even give him a name before locking him in the labyrinth? Surely they must have.

“Hail, monster!” he shouts, puffing out his chest as far as it can go, letting his spirt form glow bright and luminous. “I, king Theseus of Athens, have come to challenge you once more!”

The minotaur lifts his eyes and looks at him, yet does not attack. “Oh,” he says. Even as a shade, his voice is deep, rumbling like the depths of an active volcano. “It’s you, small one.”

“You shall address me as _king_ , beast!” Scoffs Theseus, his voice going a little too high.

The minotaur smiles. “Whatever you wish, king. Did you marry my sister, in the end?”

Theseus is thrown off his footing before their fight has even started. He was not this talkative in the darkness of the labyrinth. “I...I did. But not for long, for her fate was much grander, and she is wed to the god Dionysus.”

“Ah. That’s nice.”

Theseus bristles. “I am challenging you! You shall fight me, right now!”

The minotaur’s eyes are sad, in the way cow eyes are sad when they graze on the dusty plains. “I would love to, my king.” Something stirs in Theseus hearing that. “But this form cannot fight you.”

“Nonsense,” he grunts.

“I cannot hold a weapon nor touch you, my king,” he says, and lifts hands as big as Theseus’ torso, yet translucent and ghostly. “Surely you can banish me from this plane as the monster I am, but I cannot fight back.” There’s something like a smile on his monstrous face. “And I don’t think you traveled all the way from Elysium just for that.”

“I...I did not.”

“Why are you here in Erebus then, king?” he rumbles, looking back towards the shores of Tartarus he cannot reach.

Theseus steps closer. The beast does not move. “When we fought, years ago.”

“Hmm.”

“It was a mighty battle.”

The minotaur nods. “That it was. It was an honor to die after a fight like that.”

“I have never found an opponent like you, not in my many travels, not in Elysium. In that dark chamber our valor shone like none else, and I have not been able to stop thinking about it.”

“Neither have I,” admits the beast. “Well, you did kill me,” he says with a croak of a chuckle. “But more than that, it felt as if you fought me as a man and not an animal. It had never happened before.”

“You are a man,” says Theseus with certainty.

“The ferryman does not seem to believe so,” he snorts.

Theseus straightens up, puffing his chest once more. “Nonsense. The tale of our battle is being sang by poets and maidens, up there, and they say you have gained a place among the _stars_.”

“Hah,” he snorts even louder. “That would be quite ironic.”

“What do you mean?”

“My name,” he says with a quiet chuff as he looks up to Theseus, “is Asterius. Of the stars.”

“Oh.” Something flutters in him, hearing his name. He knows the stirring of fate when he feels it. “Then moreso, stop lingering among the animals and come with me.”

“Where to?”

“Elysium, of course! I shall plead for your induction. I am its champion, the beloved king of Athens! None shall deny me. And then we shall fight again.” He holds out his hand, and even though Asterius’ massive one passes right through his flesh with a nary a shiver, he still attempts to take it as he rises from the shore.

Charon grumbles, but takes them both, his boat getting heavier with each row as the press of Asterius’ knee against Theseus’ becomes real once more.

The house of Hades is in disarray. Torn drapes, broken pillars, shades hurrying to and fro. A pale toddler stares at them from the shrouded bosom of lady Nyx.

Hades himself is gigantic and imposing, yet looking mostly tired. Theseus can understand. He used to think being king was an honorable position, but it ended up being a lot of bureaucracy and listening to people and making compromises, all of which considerably cut into his adventuring time. Theseus pleads Asterius’ case and explains the situation to the stony frown of the king of the underworld and with every word he feels Asterius behind him become more and more solid, emanate the pale warmth he and other heroes of Elysium do.

“I can grant you this boon,” thunders king Hades. “But in return, you both shall be assigned to the stadium and maintain it and its tourneys, and stand as its champions in case anybody attempts to enter the temple of Styx or comes in from it. Is that understood?”

“Of course!” he says immediately. “We shall make short work of any worm that attempts to trespass the holy areas of the temple! Right, Asterius?”

“Right,” he snorts, and his breath is warm, and makes the curls at the back of Theseus’ neck flutter.

“Then go,” grunts king Hades, stamping a document. “Have fun.”

“Oh, we will,” he grins, and takes Asterius’s huge finger in his hand, and drags him through the gates.

***

Once in Elysium, Theseus and Asterius fight for seven full cycles of the faint light. They go through all the swords, axes, shields, bows, spears they have at their disposal, and then they fight with their bare hands, evenly matched, at full power and drunk with the knowledge they cannot hurt each other permanently and the destroyed crystals and pillars they slam into will be rebuilt on the next cycle.

They rest one cycle, in the soft, myrrh-scented translucent grass of a shaded glave, side by side, untied hair mixing together as their heads inch closer and closer.

“I would gladly be banished to haunt the earth for all eternity after that fight,” rumbles Asterius, and Theseus, flat on his stomach, slips a crystalline flower between his onyx black hair and his horn. “King,” breathes Asterius, almost worried, almost warning.

“If you were banished I would come with you,” says Theseus, threading another flower behind the same horn he was wrestling with all his force not long ago. “We’d be trickster spirits that challenge travelers to feats of strength, and have our fun nevertheless.”

“Theseus,” says Asterius for the first time, closing the space between them in a way that is as enjoyable as fighting.

They make love for seven more cycles, and cause just as much damage around them as their fight, but _far_ less shades gather round to cheer them on this time.

This, this is what they were both destined for. And they have a whole eternity of it before them.


End file.
